{"id":399280,"date":"2026-01-08T07:39:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-08T07:39:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/399280\/"},"modified":"2026-01-08T07:39:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-08T07:39:08","slug":"haruo-sotozaki-on-the-challenges-of-directing-infinity-castle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/399280\/","title":{"rendered":"Haruo Sotozaki on the Challenges of Directing ‘Infinity Castle’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tClassic anime outside of Hayao Miyazaki\u2019s work has never really made serious inroads with the Academy voters during Oscar season, but Crunchyroll <\/a>is looking to change that with \u201cDemon Slayer: Infinity Castle.<\/a>\u201d The feature shattered box office records, becoming the highest-grossing Japanese film of all time, earning $682 million worldwide. It also landed a Golden Globe nomination for motion picture \u2014 animated. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cDemon Slayer: Infinity Castle\u201d follows Tanjiro Kamado and the Demon Slayer Corps in a battle against Muzan Kibutsuji and the Upper Moons inside his hideout, known as the Infinity Castle.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe animated feature, produced by Ufotable, blends both 2D and CG styles. <\/p>\n

\n\tDirector Haruo Sotozaki explains that the characters were animated by hand, and one of the main challenges was \u201cmarrying the 2D frames within the CG background and environments.\u201d Speaking via a translator, he adds, \u201cIt was one of the hardest marriages we\u2019ve had to take on.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tMatching the 2D animation to 3D back grounds required an additional step in the production pipeline.
\u201cWe would send the key frames to the 3D team,\u201d Sotozaki says. \u201cThey would try to match those key frame animations to the surrounding 3D environments.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOnce the match was achieved, the frames were sent back to the animators to polish each one.<\/p>\n

\n\tAs far as the story is concerned, Ufotable president and chief director Hikaru Kondo reveals that the film was originally over three hours long after storyboarding. However, even at that length, there was no clear \u201coverall groove of what the journey was.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tFor the animators and the studio, it was crucial to ensure emotional investment for the audience, given how beloved the franchise, story and characters are.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe key was not to rush the process \u2014 the film took over three and a half years to make. \u201cWe\u2019ve been building up to this moment from the \u2018Unwavering Resolve\u2019 arc, laying it down for the fandom and the
audience to really buy into what is happening in the \u2018Infinity Castle,\u2019\u201d Kondo says.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt was a massive undertaking, but the team had a blueprint.<\/p>\n

\n\tThey had faced a similar challenge when creating \u201cDemon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba \u2014 The Movie: Mugen Train.\u201d \u201cThere were a lot of questions about how you can take all of this information and put it into a single film. I think that learning has been applied to \u2018Infinity Castle,\u2019\u201d Kondo says.<\/p>\n

\n\tCinematographer Yuichi Terao played a key role in balancing the visual spectacle of action sequences and battles with an engaging story.<\/p>\n

\n\tOnce the emotional backbone was established, it was also about creating an \u201cepic space.\u201d Everything had to take place within the Infinity Castle itself. The Infinity Castle first appeared in the \u201cUnwavering Resolve\u201d arc of the TV series, but now the studio had to create something even bigger.<\/p>\n

\n\tAmid the action and drama, there\u2019s also destruction, which Terao says gives fans something new to experience. \u201cWe were getting all of the destructive effects and the physics to work this hybrid effect that we\u2019ve designed. As a member of the audience, it\u2019s a fun experience, but we all collectively as the studio had to work together to put it onto the screen,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\n\tCrunchyroll remains hopeful that \u201cDemon Slayer\u201d will connect with Oscar voters and bring greater anime representation to the Academy Awards. Mitchel Berger, Crunchyroll exec VP of global commerce. has been on the FYC trail. He notes that being part of the awards conversation is a way to elevate the art form. \u201cIt\u2019s a beautiful piece of artwork,\u201d he says of \u2018Demon Slayer.\u201d \u201cThe craftsmanship, the care, and the love that goes into this \u2014 just being able to expose people to that is a wonderful thing.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Classic anime outside of Hayao Miyazaki\u2019s work has never really made serious inroads with the Academy voters during…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":399281,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[64,63,78266,14973,134,344],"class_list":{"0":"post-399280","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-crunchyroll","11":"tag-demon-slayer","12":"tag-entertainment","13":"tag-movies"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399280","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=399280"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/399280\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/399281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=399280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=399280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=399280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}